Lima,  July 16, 2005

Brief review of the outlook for the region

We are gathered together at an especially favorable time for the exchange of initiatives within the sphere of the Andean Integration System.  

The positive performance of the subregion’s economies for the second straight year continues to boost trade among our countries to historic levels, as their exports to world markets rise progressively.    

As a result,  the task of deepening our economic and trade integration has become increasingly relevant, particularly for the benefit of small and medium-size enterprises whose natural market is the enlarged market.  But in doing this, we must not neglect our joint effort to guarantee that our countries are able to play a quality role in the world economy.

We have arrived at this new meeting at a moment when, having recovered the dimension of development as an essential precondition for strengthening democracy, today threatened by the multiple forms of poverty, exclusion and inequality that continue to exist in the subregion, the role of integration is being revalued in the subregion.  

Important advances have been made in our convergence toward building the South American Community of Nations, a project that takes on special significance at this Lima Summit because of the culmination of the process of reciprocal association between the Member Countries of the Andean Community and the MERCOSUR States Parties. 

Giving their true value to the joint efforts within the SAI

I believe we have reached this Summit at one of the best possible moments of the always-perfectable coordination among the organs and institutions of the SAI.  Our intensive and productive workdays throughout this year in our own scenarios or in those where our institutional efforts converge are proof of this. 

One and a half years after arriving at the General Secretariat, I am able to state with deep satisfaction that I have had an opportunity to meet with each of my colleagues in the SAI at their own headquarters, frequently on more than one occasion.  Cooperation agreements and strategic alliances of varying degrees of deepness and that today are fully operational, have been signed with each of their institutions.

I would like to draw attention, in this context, to the effort we made at the General Secretariat headquarters on December 3rd of last year, to build a shared vision of the SAI’s responsibilities in deepening the Andean integration process.

We agreed there to work together on issues that today are part of a shared agenda that will reinforce our cohesion.  To mention only a few of these:

a) Our strong support for the new Strategic Design for the Integration process and a coordinated effort to make the most of competitive advantages and institutional teamwork in executing its programs and projects.

b) Our firm commitment, within the spheres of our respective responsibilities, to advance the South American Community of Nations.

c) The joint development of initiatives to consolidate integration with Central America, Mexico and the Caribbean.  

d) The need to progressively extend the benefits of integration to Andean citizens, within our respective areas of competence, and to open common spaces that will ensure broader involvement by civil society in consolidating the Andean Community.   

e) The urgent need to design and put forward a financially sustainable plan for Community institutions; and

f) The advisability of holding an annual meeting of the SAI Community Organs and Institutions during the final quarter of each year as a forum for coordination, reflection and a shared vision of the Andean integration process.   

As the results show, we have advanced more in some areas than in others, but the most important thing is that today we have a joint roadmap that had escaped us in the past. 

A common agenda for the near future

It is very likely that specific guidelines for strengthening our Community project will emerge from next Monday’s Presidential dialogue that once again aims at the more flexible format we tried out in Quito.   The fact is, however, that the key issues have already been placed on the table by the Council Ministers and the Representatives to the Commission. 

I would like to refer only to certain aspects, on which it will be necessary for the SAI to show a great capacity for joint action over the next few months: 

a) In order to reach consensual decisions with MERCOSUR and Chile on the actions that will be needed for our gradual convergence in building the new South American Community of Nations, it is crucially important to deepen Andean Community integration and cohesion and for the organs and institutions that make up the Andean Integration System to work closely together. 

b) For this same purpose,  it will also be decisively important for SAI organs and institutions to help conceive and advance programs and projects that will make it possible to design the South American space as a great decentralized development program by generating visions of business transactions, investments and employment throughout the IIRSA integration and development hubs.  

c) SAI organs and institutions are also needed to help design innovative financial and institutional instruments for mobilizing resources and local actors to build policies for promoting the territorial development and social cohesion of the Andean Community Member Countries. 

d) The SAI can help, as well, to mobilize public opinion and resources so that the Andean countries give due weight to the strategic importance of their oil, gas and other energy resources for boosting their economic and social development, ensuring the subregion’s energy supply and enhancing their leading role in South America.    

e) To conclude, it will be necessary to build up the capacity of Andean Community institutions through concerted action by the SAI and the General Secretariat in order to further the new cooperative actions to reinforce the institutional system and democratic governance, undertaken for the first time at the request of several Member countries pursuant to the implementation of the Protocol “Andean Commitment to Democracy” and the Andean Charter for the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights.  

These five tasks are an invitation to joint action by all of the organs and institutions that make up the Andean Integration System.

Thank-you very much.